An eventful weekend at Watkins Glen ended in what feels like the inevitable for the field in the 2025 NASCAR Cup season, with Shane van Gisbergen dominating on a road course race to take his fourth victory of the year.
Ryan Blaney shocked the field on Saturday when he beat NASCAR's new road course mechanic to the pole by 0.033 seconds. He would go on to thrive in clean air and take advantage of it to win the first two stages.
In the second stage, Shane van Gisbergen passed Blaney for third before the duo went after the RFK teammates of Christopher Buescher and Ryan Preece, who stayed out on old tires. van Gisbergen would pit before the end of the stage, with Blaney electing to stay out and grab a second playoff point for the day.
The New Zealand-born rookie ran from 12th to the lead in the final stage before being the last of the leaders to pit, giving up a 19-second lead and coming out 13th. van Gisbergen would cycle back to the lead with last week's winner, William Byron, behind. Byron grew frustrated with van Gisbergen, who stayed right in front of the Hendrick driver as he lay in wait for the 12 cars ahead of him to pit, wasting Byron's tires and burning his fuel to keep him from making a move once they cycled to the lead.
Keselowski was the last to pit with 16 laps to go, and van Gisbergen moved to the lead, already two seconds ahead of Byron.
Buescher took second from Byron with nine laps remaining, hoping to set up for a repeat of last year, where Buescher beat Shane van Gisbergen to become the first heel of the NASCAR Playoffs, when Watkins Glen was run at a later fall date.
Buescher never had the chance to pressure van Gisbergen and in the final laps was also passed by Christopher Bell, who is the only other road course winner this year with his win at COTA. The Cup Rookie moved out to an 11.1-second lead over Bell for his fourth win of the season.
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